Recipe for training a horse:

Practice Pause

Don’t drill your horse. Three to five minutes, three to five reps. Take a break, change the exercise. The horse doesn’t have to get it “right” before you quit or move on. Learning comes with mistakes and they don’t have to stay at school until they have it perfect. We would not do that to a child who is learning. Drilling rarely creates anything but stress and anxiety. Stick to your 3-5 and walk away.

I apologize for my absence and appreciate everyone’s patience. If you are distracted, don’t expect your horse to be focused. If you can tell me what is happening outside the arena, you aren’t focusing on the task in the arena. If you can’t keep your focus in the arena, don’t be upset when your horse can’t either. Your horse needs a mentor. If you are constantly looking for boogeymen then your horse will expect to find them. If you stay focused and confident; your horse will f

For almost 15 months I’ve been dreading this day. In my head I imagined all the things that could go wrong. I’ve told myself I couldn’t do it and probably shouldn’t. I wasted a lot of energy over 15 months being anxious.

Loading foals. These aren’t the best video but they were in our security camera.

Your horse protects their engine. Their hind end is what gives the flight and they also use it to fight. A horse yielding it’s hindquarters to you is entrusting you with their safety. They are giving up control of something vital to their survival.

Your horse doesn’t want fight with you. If they are getting emotional and looking for an out, they don’t understand the information, they aren’t strong enough or they are painful.

If it feels like you have to start over every time your horse gets a break because of life, there is a problem. Either the training wasn’t good or the horse is painful.

There is a fine line between pushing too far and not pushing far enough. If we push too hard we can shut our horse down, create anxiety about what we are trying to accomplish, and drive our horse away from us. If we stop too soon, we can teach the horse that when they get stressed we stop which never helps them learn to deal with pressure. How can we find that line?

Riding is hard. If it were easy, everyone would be experts. Getting on the back of a large flight animal takes some bravery. Sometimes we have to be braver than we want to be. Horses can only respond to the information they are receiving. That includes our emotions. Sometimes we have to be more persistent than we want to be. Horses will challenge us when they feel confused, insecure or our request is hard. There will be days when we have to push past and through the r

Our attitude has a pretty big outcome on a session with our horse. Monday wasn’t good for most of my horses. Tuesday it stormed, so I opted not to work them because I didn’t want the storms to create a repeat of Monday.

Yesterday was a tough day. The horses had a week off due to my anniversary and lesson schedule. I moved some horses and cows around to utilize our grass better. I had one of 4 horses act like they had a brain.

How often should I ride?

Go slow but hurry. We heard this multiple times at the Brent Graef clinic. It seems like a contradictory statement. It is actually wise advice.

Tarrin’s Tips and Tricks

Tarrin’s Training Tips

Training Tips

Training Video

Your horse can’t be “on” everyday.